


something like i love you

by sparkycap



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:10:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5219177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkycap/pseuds/sparkycap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Space is the only thing Jim Kirk has loved all his life. Twenty years old on a barroom floor, he gets pulled back to Earth. Something (a man in a bar, a girl on an airport shuttle, a boy on a plane, a girl in a dorm room) keeps him there.</p><p>He brings space with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavily inspired by [this post](http://darlinjim.tumblr.com/post/128939997239/a-modern-day-jim-kirk-who-puts-little-glowing). Also thanks to [this aesthetic tag](http://darlinjim.tumblr.com/tagged/jim-kirk-aesthetic), which I highly recommend scrolling through before or after you read this. Basically thanks to [darlinjim](http://darlinjim.tumblr.com) for a whole lot of inspiration, I hope you like this!

Jim gets his first tattoo the day he leaves Iowa.

It’s small and unassuming and inexpensive, done in a little over an hour at a tiny shop in Iowa City the morning before his flight. He spends the whole time watching, stars and planets coming to life across his wrist in blunt, black ink, and feels an elated sort of pain.

…

He meets a girl on the airport shuttle, still high on endorphins and the knowledge of the new art on his body, even covered as it is with a bandage and a leather jacket, and she glares like a supernova when he asks for her name.

“Uhura,” she tells him, finally, halfway into the ride when it becomes clear neither of them are going anywhere on the too-full shuttle.

“They don’t have last names in your world?” Jim asks, grinning, just to see whether she smiles or scowls.

“Uhura is my last name,” she says, the corners of her lips twitching.

“They don’t have first names in your world?” He tries.

She smiles, finally, shaking her head and looking away again. Jim finds himself content with the knowledge that there is a sun in her smile.

Still, before the ride is over, he says, “Where are you coming from?”

“Odd question when we’re heading _to_ an airport,” she comments.

Jim cocks his head. “Call it a wild guess, but you don’t look like you’re from around here.”

“I had a long layover,” Uhura tells him, a lovely little non-answer that only makes him smile wider. “Where are you coming from?”

“Riverside,” Jim tells her. “What, don’t I look the part?”

Uhura gives him a very pointed once over, eyes lingering on his blue and purple hair, and cocks an eyebrow. “And for a moment there I thought you _weren’t_ just a dumb hick that only has sex with farm animals.”

“Well,” Jim allows. “Not _only_.”

She laughs. Bright and bubbly and honest, maybe not a fraction of what it could be and maybe a little reluctant, but hey, Jim likes having a goal to work for.

She disappears when they reach the airport, gone into the crowd with a swish of long, dark hair. And then she looks back. She looks back and doesn’t miss a stride in her frankly dangerous looking boots and gives him one last enigmatic smile.

There’s a feeling his chest like falling in love.

…

He gets a window seat on the flight to San Francisco and tries not to think of it as the only good luck he’s had in the last six months (meeting Chris Pike in a bar and being goaded into buying the ticket in the first place doesn’t count, not when the jury’s still out on exactly what kind of luck that was).

The first thing his seatmate says to him is: “I may throw up on you.”

And Jim, who had distantly overheard him arguing with the flight attendant ( _I suffer from aviophobia, it means fear of dying in something that flies_ ) while he walked to his own seat and smiled at Uhura (three rows down and doing her best not smile back), says, “I think these things are pretty safe.”

“Don’t pander to me, kid,” the guy grumbles, and then cuts himself off to order a drink from a passing flight attendant.

Jim eyes him warily. “I hate to break this to you, but there _are_ other methods of travel. You didn’t exactly _have_ to choose the one that flies.”

“Yeah, well,” the man looks away. “If I’m bein’ honest, I was ready to get on the first thing leaving town.”

“Didn’t have a car?” Jim asks, mostly out of the kindness of his heart, to keep the guy distracted until his alcohol arrives.

“Ex-wife took it in the divorce. Along with, well, everything else. All I got left is my bones,” the man says, just as the attendant sets his drink down. He drains it and orders another.

Jim feels his lips tug up almost involuntarily, if only for the knowledge that he’s not the most melodramatic person on this flight. He shrugs off his jacket and settles in, watching as the man considers his complimentary bag of peanuts before rolling his eyes and tossing them onto Jim’s tray. He reaches for them as the plane starts to move down the runway, nods gratefully, and offers, “Jim Kirk.”

“McCoy. Leonard McCoy,” the guy says. Then there’s a gentle touch on his forearm, stopping its movement, and he looks up. McCoy, eyes clearer somehow, nods toward the bandage on his wrist. “That all right?”

Jim pauses, mouth parting for words that he doesn’t quite have. McCoy waits patiently, the concern Jim would swear he imagined in the man’s voice reflected in his eyes and the quirk of his lips. Finally, he says, “Yeah. New tattoo.”

McCoy raises an incredulous eyebrow. “You got a tattoo the morning before hopping on a plane to San Francisco?”

“I had a couple hours to kill,” Jim says, shrugging, jerking his chin at the bandage, “That’ll be off in forty-five minutes.”

“You got some antibacterial soap in your carry-on?” McCoy questions, taking Jim aback. McCoy doesn’t seem to notice, just continues, “Might do with some ointment, too, though that could probably wait.”

Jim eyes him, from the scruff on his jaw to the neat part in his hair, and guesses, “Doctor or tattoo artist?”

Then it’s McCoy’s turn to look surprised, but he just shakes his head. “Med student, actually.”

Jim nearly asks what school, but then McCoy’s eyes widen further, sliding past Jim and out the window, staring at the clouds getting closer as if he’s just realized they’re not on the ground anymore. Jim smiles.

And even if McCoy’s next move is to reach for the second drink waiting on his tray and forgotten until now, the glass doesn’t quite hide his small smile. McCoy avoids the window like the plague, but Jim still sees the stars in his eyes.

There’s a feeling in his chest like falling in love.

…

The first thing he does when he gets to campus is find Chris Pike.

“Look who actually showed up,” Pike says, mildly impressed.

“I hope that doesn’t mean you don’t have a room for me,” Jim says, dropping his bags on the floor and collapsing into one of the chairs in front of Pike’s desk.

Pike tosses him a key ring and says, “Farragut Hall, Room 214.”

“And my admission?” Jim asks. Pike had pulled him out of a bar fight less than a week ago and told him to show up for the start of the semester. Jim may not have much experience with the educational system in general, but he doesn’t imagine that type of last minute admission is easy to swing.

“Set and ready. Got you into all the classes you’ll need,” Pike tells him.

“All gen eds, I imagine?” Jim asks distastefully.

“Don’t worry, I gave you a couple of electives to get you started on your major,” Pike reassures.

“How do you know what I’m going to major in?” Jim counters.

“Call it an educated guess,” Pike says.

Jim spreads out his hands, crosses his legs at the ankle, and says, “By all means, educate me.”

“Engineering major,” Pike says, confident, looking him straight in the eye. He considers, then adds, “Astrophysics minor.”

Jim smirks. “Well, actually, I was thinking a double major.”

Pike whistles lowly. “That’s ambitious talk for a kid I found drooling on a barroom floor.”

“Did you forget the genius part of genius level repeat offender?” Jim shoots back.

Pike shrugs. “I can’t help it if I was thinking more about the repeat offender part.”

Jim smiles innocently. “I promise getting repeatedly punched in the face hasn’t had any real effect on my level of intelligence.”

“I’m a little more worried about what it _says_ about your intelligence,” Pike says, but there’s a fond smile playing at the edges of his lips. Something softer in his eyes, he adds, “I’m glad you’re stepping up, son.”

Jim looks away instead of answering. He clears his throat. “Yeah, well. I assume the costs of books and shit isn’t included in my scholarship?”

“What makes you think you’re getting a scholarship?” Pike asks curiously, not denying it.

Jim smiles, mocking and derisive, and says in Pike’s own words, “Because I’m my father’s son.”

Pike wisely does not comment. He says, “Your books are already in your dorm. Room and board is covered. I’ll give you some money for clothes and supplies, if that duffle bag’s all you got.”

What Jim’s got is a little over twenty-five grand in a bank account he’s never touched. He snorts. “My mom’s been sending me child support checks to take care of myself since I was sixteen. I’ve got some savings.”

There’s something sad in Pike’s face that Jim chooses not to look at it. He stands and slings his duffle bag over his shoulder, grabbing his carry-on in one hand and setting the other on the door handle. “Are we done here?”

“Sure. Until next week, then.”

Jim spins around in the hallway, eyes wide. Pike gives him a smile, serene as the night sky.

“See you in class.”

There’s a feeling in his chest just a little bit like hope.

…

Jim has space sheets.

They’re old and soft and cheap, a faded navy blue after four years of frequent washing, covered in sketchy suns and stars and moons. He got them when he was sixteen, the year Mom had started sending money instead of coming home, the first thing he bought with his first paycheck from a bar the next town over that didn’t question his fake ID.

Jim is absurdly proud of them.

Of course, he realizes belatedly that meeting his roommate while sitting on space-patterned sheets in a well-worn NASA t-shirt might not be the first impression he wants to give. It’s a fairly accurate impression, no doubt, but of questionable desirability as a first.

As it happens, he’s mostly preoccupied with the fact that his roommate is a woman.

A beautiful woman with brilliant green eyes and bouncy red curls who makes an excited noise when she sees him and says, “Oh, you’re here!”

“And you’re gorgeous,” Jim says dumbly. She laughs.

“Right back at you, handsome,” she says, winking. “That gonna be a problem?”

“Not for me,” Jim says, still a little slow, more from curiosity now than outright shock. He’s always been good at rolling with punches—literally, for the most part.

“Me neither,” she says cheerily. “My roommate dropped out last minute, and I guess they’re kind of short on housing options so they asked me if I’d mind you. Obviously I said no, here we are, my name’s Gaila, by the way.”

“Jim Kirk,” he says, finally working up a smile. Gaila returns it infectiously.

“I know,” she tells him. “So listen, I’ve been here for a few days already, but I didn’t want to do any decorating until you got here. Which I see was a good instinct, because you don’t seem to have much on hand. I thought we could go grab some stuff together, what do you say?”

And really, there’s only one thing _to_ say. “Are you doing anything right now?”

Gaila beams.

They grab a bus downtown, asking each other invasive personal questions under the guise of roommate bonding, and it’s not until they’re walking into the store that Gaila says, “So, the space thing. What is it?”

Jim pauses a moment, not sure of the question, before he gives the only answer he knows. “Beautiful.”

“Fair enough,” Gaila laughs. “But what, is it a hobby, an obsession, a passion?”

“An aspiration,” Jim says finally. “I’m going to go there one day.”

“To where? The moon?” Gaila asks, interested.

“Sure.” Jim shrugs. “But not—farther, too. I want to go farther, where no one has gone before. I want to see stars up close.”

Gaila stares at him, the moon in her gray-green eyes, and says, “I think I love you.”

Jim stares back. “That is so weird.”

“ _That is so weird_?” Gaila parrots at him, incredulous. Then something clears in her expression, and Jim would rather have the disbelief back, but she says, “Oh, baby.”

And Jim blurts out, “I need pajamas.”

Gaila raises an eyebrow, but she goes with it. “You didn’t bring any?”

Jim winces. “My packing job was really last minute.”

Gaila shrugs. “Well, let’s see if we can’t find you a few more space t-shirts, then.”

They make their way through the store, Gaila wandering off every once in awhile before circling back with something new and exciting to dump in their cart. Jim simply continues his leisurely progress, until the moment he’s passing the toy aisle and Gaila is nowhere in sight and the display at the end of aisle is full of stars.

The kind of stars that don’t really look like stars, that glow almost green at night. The kind of stars Jim had on the ceiling of his bedroom in Iowa, despite the fact that they were for ages five to seven and he’d never been afraid of the dark.

He stretches a hand out without meaning to, fingers brushing the package and lingering, and he’s thinking he should stop looking so wistful over a pack of plastic before Gaila comes back and catches him acting like a five-year-old boy.

And then she appears at his side and says, “Hey, grab me a pack, will you?”

Jim’s head snaps to the side, eyebrows raised disbelievingly. “You want one?”

“Well, yeah, I don’t think one will be enough to cover the whole ceiling, and there’s no sense only doing your half,” Gaila says, shrugging. She bumps their shoulders together teasingly and drops two packs of glow-in-the-dark stars into their cart. “Can’t let you have all the fun, space boy.”

And there’s a feeling his chest like falling in love.

…

Jim goes to sleep alone, in a new black shirt with a silvery moon over his heart, curled on his side with the fingertips of his right hand resting gently on his left wrist, over his pulse and his planets and his stars. He stares until he falls asleep, the back of his eyelids glowing green, and feels an elated sort of pain.

He dreams of space and stardust.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is unbeta-ed, so go ahead and let me know if anything seems wrong to you guys--this is my first time writing these characters, and I think I'm having trouble with the characterization because the rift between TOS and AOS is messing me up. Also feel free to tell me if I went overboard on the space metaphors, kinda get the feeling I might have. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Jim re-dyes his hair midway through November.

The purple has been fading, and he has an empty Sunday afternoon with time to kill. There’s no point, he figures, in having hair like the galaxy if it’s not as vibrant as the stars.

…

He meets Gaila for dinner, and she ooh’s and ah’s appropriately, running her hands through the freshly dyed strands, soft and silky the way they will be for at least a few days. Even Uhura smiles when she sits down with them, something nostalgic at the sight of him with bright hair and a black jacket like she’s about to refuse to tell him her name.

McCoy, who Jim had re-met at a coffee shop a week into the start of term and hadn’t let go of since, slides into the booth next and ruffles Jim’s hair without pausing in his grumbling for even a moment. It’s a talent of his.

“Something on your mind, Bones?” Jim asks, amused.

Bones ignores him to flag down a waitress and order a drink. Jim hides a smile behind his glass, waiting patiently, and finally Bones says, “Joanna’s coming for Thanksgiving.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Uhura asks, cocking her head.

Bones shakes his head immediately. “Of course not. It’s a good thing, a damn good thing. It’s Jocelyn that’s the problem.”

Jim grimaces. “What now?”

“She’s supposed to have Joanna for Thanksgiving, damn near ripped my head off when I suggested anything else back when we were workin’ this shit out. Then suddenly her new boyfriend wants to spend the holiday with her and she’s ready to hand Jo off to my mama and ship her to San Francisco,” Bones says, rubbing a hand over his face. He mutters a quiet thank you to the waitress when she sets his drink down, steals one of Jim’s fries, and then finishes, “It’s not a big deal now, Joanna’s too young to know any better, she’s just excited for the trip. But Jocelyn…”

“That’s fucked up,” Gaila says, frowning.

Bones nods, sighing wearily. “Joanna’s not going to be this young forever. She can’t keep doing this.”

Jim hesitates. Bones has a face like the dark side of the moon, and he wants to make it go away. With no actual productive options left to him, he pushes closer and knocks their knees together, still kind of unused to initiating positive physical contact. Bones looks over and smiles like he knows that, some of the tension finally leaving his shoulders as he leans back into the booth and stretches an arm across the back of it.

“So, what’s new with you infants?” He asks, flicking Jim’s temple. “I see you’re a pretty, pretty princess again.”

Jim touches his hair absently, frowning, “Are you saying I’m not pretty without bright blue hair?”

“Yes,” Uhura says bluntly.

Gaila pats his hand across the table. “I always think you’re pretty, baby.”

Bones chuckles, finally picking up his menu, rolling up his sleeves as he does. Sunday means Gaila spent the morning shopping, Uhura on a brunch date with her new boyfriend, Jim sitting in the bathroom with open windows and a book in his hand waiting for his dye to take. Bones probably spent the day in the library stressing about Jocelyn. Jim nudges closer.

He reaches out and taps his fingers over Bones’s forearm as he and Uhura order, idly following the lines of his tattoos, the half-sleeve Jim is endlessly enamored of every time he gets a glimpse. A grayscale of bones and tendons, pale red veins spreading down toward his wrist, all of it, if Jim had to guess, anatomically accurate. Except, of course, the vein on the inside of the wrist, which has a singular offshoot spelling out Joanna’s name.

Jim traces the elegant cursive and says, “I think I want another tattoo.”

“Let me guess,” Uhura says, crossing her legs and leaning back. “You’re going to get an entire sleeve of stars.”

“Shooting stars,” Gaila suggests. “Or, no, constellations!”

Jim’s eyes light up. “Now there’s a thought.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’ll just go get this done tomorrow during your lunch break,” Bones says sarcastically, shaking his head.

Jim rolls his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bones, I’ve got a study date with Scotty and Chekov tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday.”

“You know how long it took me to make up my mind on this?” Bones asks, nodding at the art Jim is still rubbing his thumb over. “Three months. That’s how sensible people get tattoos.”

“See, you say _sensible_ , but I’m hearing _boring_.”

“That’s because you’re an infant.”

Gaila laughs. “Okay, boys, play nice. McCoy, remember Jim’s not the only twenty-year-old at this table.”

“Darlin’, you know that insult has nothin’ to do with your age. Jim’ll be a child when he’s fifty,” Bones says.

Uhura hums, agreeing. She turns the subject to the others’ holiday plans, and Jim pulls a napkin toward him, stealing a pen from Gaila’s purse. He sketches constellations, absentminded, and runs a hand through his blue and purple hair.

At the end of dinner he leaves the napkin behind on the table, Aquila and Orion and Leo decorating the surface in blunt, black ink.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Uhura trace over the lines of Aquila before sliding the napkin into her purse. She smiles to herself, her own private sun, and Jim lets himself bask in the warmth.

There’s a feeling in his chest a little like home.

…

He’s sitting in the same coffee shop where he ran into Bones three months ago when he hears a little girl say in a loud whisper, “Daddy, look at his hair! That boy by the wall, it’s so pretty…”

Jim, who is both by the wall and the only person in the room with the type of hair that regularly gets exclaimed over, smiles to himself.

And then he hears a familiar laugh. “That it is, sweetheart. You want to touch it?”

“Do you think he’ll let me?” the girl asks.

“I know he will,” Bones says. “You remember my friend Jim I told you about?”

“You didn’t tell me he was so pretty,” Joanna says, almost reproachful.

Jim laughs into his coffee, finally looking over. “Bones, come on. At this point you’re just being rude.”

“Says the kid who wouldn’t know polite if it bit him in the—“ Bones bites his tongue before he can swear in front of his daughter, glancing at her guiltily. She doesn’t even notice.

Still examining Jim’s hair, she asks idly, “Why does he call you Bones, Daddy?”

“Because of my tattoos,” Bones tells her, saying nothing about his remark on the plane and Jim’s endless jokes about sawbones. “Jim, would you mind…”

Jim, who is watching Joanna delightedly, brown hair and green eyes and so much like her father, asks obligingly, “Would you like to feel my hair, Miss Joanna?”

“If you don’t mind,” she says, polite, and Jim beams.

He hasn’t had much occasion to be around children since he was one, but this little girl’s smile makes him feel lighter than stardust.

“’Course not. If I may…” Jim offers his hand, gallant as he knows how, waiting until she places her fingers daintily in his own to duck his head and place her hand atop it. She makes a soft noise, carding her fingers through the multicolored strands. He grins.

“Jim, stop charming my daughter,” Bones grumbles. “She’s too young for you to break her heart.”

“Daddy, don’t be silly. Jim is a boy, he’s icky,” Joanna says, rolling her eyes, pulling her hand away and stepping back into Bones’s side.

Jim adopts a devastated expression. “I thought I was pretty.”

She looks at him like he’s an idiot, a miniature Bones, and tells him, “You can be both.”

“Right, my bad,” Jim says, shaking his head at himself. It’s not like it’s the first time a girl has described him that way, though it is the first time he’s gotten it from a four-year-old. “Think I should buy you breakfast to make up for it?”

Joanna cocks her head. “How’d you know we’re here for breakfast?”

“Because I know your daddy is barely awake enough to breathe before ten am, let alone cook,” Jim teases.

Joanna laughs, and it’s bright like the sun, and suddenly it’s like there’s something of Uhura in her too, all mixed up in her smile with the way he sees Bones in her eyes, Jim’s own personal sun and stars.

“Daddy, can he?” Joanna asks.

Bones raises an eyebrow at Jim, who nods. “Jim can do whatever he wants, sweetheart, I haven’t found a way to stop him yet.”

Joanna frowns. “That was kinda rude, Daddy. You could have just said yes.”

God, but Jim adores this child.

“Come on, starshine,” he says, taking her hand. “Tell me what you want. I think I’m in a croissant mood.”

Bones follows them, grumbling about Jim not giving his daughter sugar before noon and _what the hell does starshine even mean, Jim_?

 _The same thing all nicknames mean_ , Jim doesn’t tell him, _something like I love you_.

…

Thanksgiving day Jim is woken up by a knock on the door. He practically falls out of bed, scrubbing at his eyes, and shuffles across the room. He glances down at himself, considering, before he shrugs and answers the door in a Project Apollo t-shirt, boxers, and socks covered in little NASA symbols.

It’s a choice he almost regrets when Bones starts laughing the moment the door opens.

“Kid, do you even know how much of a dork you are?” He asks, reaching out and tugging pointedly at the hem of Jim’s shirt.

Jim slaps his hand away, leaning against the door. “I embrace it proudly. What do you want, man?”

“Your complete cooperation,” Bones says easily. “Get dressed.”

“That’s not an answer,” Jim grumbles, but he still lets Bones inside and shuts the door. “Why am I getting dressed?”

“Because dinner’s at my place and you can’t come in boxers.” Bones slides his hands into his pockets, casual, but his gaze is serious.

Just as well, because Jim freezes. “Bones, I’m not crashing your Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I don’t think it counts as crashin’ when you got an invitation,” Bones says. “I can write one up all formal-like if that’d make you feel better.”

“Bones, stop. This is supposed to be your day with your family, hell you haven’t seen your daughter in months. I’m not going to impose on that,” Jim says firmly. Bones opens his mouth, no doubt to argue, and Jim hurries to add, “Where is Joanna, anyway?”

“In the car with my mom. She wanted to come in, but I said you had to come because you want to and not because you can’t say no to her puppy dog eyes,” Bones says. Jim doesn’t tell him that the stars in his eyes are just as lethal as the ones in his daughter’s. Bones continues, “Mama’s dyin’ to meet you, by the way. We all want you there, kid.”

Jim looks down, trying not to give in. Petulantly, he mutters, “I did have plans, you know.”

“Oh?” Bones raises an eyebrow.

Jim nods. “Yeah, I got a bag of Stove Top and some thin-sliced turkey, was gonna eat in front of the football game. It’ll feel just like home.”

“Pre-made stuffing and deli meat,” Bones says flatly.

“It’s what I’m used to,” Jim says, shrugging. He says this, and doesn’t say how familiar he is with all the ways loneliness feels like a black hole.

“You’re breakin’ my heart here, darlin’,” Bones says, rubbing a hand over his face.

Jim shrugs, defensive. “I didn’t ask you to come here and do this.”

“No, but my daughter did,” Bones says. “Yeah, she asked me this morning if you were coming, and I told her I was plannin’ on givin’ you a call but I didn’t think you’d be interested. So she told me to drive over here and said if I didn’t convince you she would, because families are supposed to be together on holidays. Her words.”

Jim stares at him, dumbfounded. “I only met her three days ago.”

Bones shakes his head, exasperated, like maybe Jim’s an idiot but maybe he doesn’t mind so much, and says, “I call her at least three times a week, kid. She’s been hearin’ about you for awhile now.”

And Jim, before he can decide to let himself or convince himself not to or really have any thought at all, strides forward and throws his arms around Bones. Words half-lost in his shirt, Jim mumbles, “I don’t know what to say."

Bones wraps him up in a tight hug and says, “Shut up and grab a nice shirt, okay? We’ve been keepin’ the ladies waitin’.”

Jim nods into Bones’s shoulder, taking a moment to breathe. Bones simply waits, holds on, and Jim feels stars exploding in his chest.

Finally Jim pulls away. “I don’t think I actually have a nice shirt.”

Bones is in a dark red button down, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Jim’s t-shirt is bright orange and sadly threadbare. Somehow he doesn’t think Mrs. McCoy will approve.

“Let’s see what we can do,” Bones says, already rifling through Jim’s clothes. He throws a pair of dark jeans at Jim’s face, then turns around few a moments later and looks at him disbelievingly, “You don’t own one button down?”

“Do I look like the kind of person who’s ever needed to own a button down?” Jim asks, tugging the jeans up his hips. He shoves his feet into his boots, patting at his hair, and Bones rolls his eyes.

“You look like the kind of person who belongs on a stripper pole on the moon,” Bones says, possibly because his Project Apollo shirt is old enough that there’s a sliver of skin showing above the waistband his jeans and possibly because it’s worn enough that his nipples may or may not be somewhat visible.

“Is that a compliment?” Jim asks. “I think that’s a compliment.”

Bones just holds up a dark gray shirt, tastefully plain, and raises an eyebrow. Jim grabs it from him with a sigh, changing swiftly and grabbing his jacket. Bones steps up, straightening out the lapels and lifting his hands to Jim’s hair to comb it into some semblance of order.

When he looks about ready to break out an actual comb, Jim snaps, “Look, your mom’s probably gonna hate it no matter what, can we just go?”

Bones, surprise not enough to make him stop fussing, asks, “Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know, isn’t she some classy Southern belle? Hardly think she’s gonna approve of, well,” Jim waves a hand around his head to indicate the unnatural brightness of his hair, and to his shock Bones just snorts.

“First of all, if my mama was old-fashioned enough to have a problem with that sorta thing, I wouldn’t have my sleeves up right now,” he says, pointed. “Second of all, she’s a hair stylist. She ain’t gonna think this is anything less than a work of art.”

“Oh,” Jim says dumbly. “I guess that’s okay, then.”

Bones smacks him upside the head and presses a kiss to his temple in the same moment. Jim ducks his head, smiling, and lets Bones tug him out the door, like following his north star.

There’s a feeling in his chest a little like home.

…

Jim crawls into bed that night back in his bright orange t-shirt, vibrant hair spread across his pillow glowing green under the stars. Gaila won’t be home until after the weekend, away having Thanksgiving with Uhura and her family despite not usually celebrating it herself, but he is not alone. There is no black hole beneath his ribs.

He dreams of suns and starshine.


	3. Chapter 3

Jim gets his second tattoo a week before his twenty-first birthday.

He sketches it out himself, a rough draft done in Advanced Engineering that has Pike shooting him looks the whole lecture. He comes over and examines Jim’s notebook at the end of class, and then there’s a smile playing around his lips even as he flicks Jim on the forehead and tells him to pay attention. He hopes Pike knows the tattoo design was in the middle of the page and didn’t include the planets and spaceships scattered around the edges.

…

He catches Gaila in their room as she’s leaving, passing her in the doorway and saying, “Wish me luck.”

She stops dead. “What do you need luck for?”

“New tattoo,” Jim says casually, tossing his bag on his bed and rummaging through for his wallet. Then he pauses, looks up, says, “Actually, don’t you have a test right now? Maybe we should save the luck for you.”

“ _Yes_ , I have a test right now, which means I can’t go with you,” Gaila says, crestfallen. “Is Leonard going?”

“No, he’s in class,” Jim tells her distractedly, still pawing through his bag. “Have you seen my wallet?”

“Front left pocket,” she says, absentminded. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going today? I could’ve went with you.”

Jim looks up, retrieving his wallet and slipping it into his jeans. “Think you would’ve had a test even if I’d told you. Besides, I didn’t know you wanted to come.”

“Well I don’t want you to go alone,” Gaila says, upset now. “Tattoos are painful.”

“You don’t say,” Jim says, quirking an eyebrow. She crosses her arms sternly , and he raises his hands, placating. “Look, I was alone the first time, I think I can handle the second.”

“That’s not the point!” Gaila exclaims, quick and unlike her, a supernova. “The point is you don’t _have_ to, and I don’t like the thought of you going off alone to be in pain.”

Jim softens. “I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance, Gaila. At most I’ll be uncomfortable.”

“Still,” she insists. She runs a hand through her hair, biting her lip. Then, finally, she asks, “When are you going?”

“Now,” he says. “I’ve got an appointment.”

She nods thoughtfully. “Wait five minutes.”

It’s an odd order, maybe, but she’s given him worse.

Someone knocks on the open door before five minutes pass.

And Uhura smiles brightly from the doorway. “Reporting for handholding duty. Where’s the little girl I’m escorting?”

He very nearly shuts the door in her face.

“No, wait,” she protests laughingly, likely seeing the intention on his face. “Gaila filled me in, I’m just playing around.”

Jim ducks his head, trying not to smile. Time spent with Uhura is always exciting, and even more is the fact that Gaila told her Jim needed someone and she _came_.

So he holds out a hand, gesturing for her to precede him into the hall, and says, “So, if you’re helping me out in my time of need now, does that mean we’re close enough I can call you Nyo—“

“Nope.”

Jim sighs good-naturedly, sliding his hands into his pockets and following her to her car. At least he doesn’t have to take the bus anymore.

“What are you getting, anyway?” Uhura asks as she pulls out into traffic, shooting him a curious glance.

“A shooting star,” Jim says, grinning, and sure enough she laughs, shaking her head like she should have guessed. He finishes, “Underlining the words ‘To Boldly Go.’”

Uhura raises an eyebrow, interested. “Where’d that come from?”

“Something Pike said to me one time,” Jim tells her. “We were at lunch, talking about space—“

“As you do,“ Uhura interjects, laughing.

“As we do,” Jim agrees, taking it in stride. “And he said that space is our final frontier, and people look at that as an investment or… or some kind of competition, but that’s not the point. The point is exploring strange new worlds and maybe seeking out new life… the point is to boldly go where no one’s gone before. And, well, I guess that stuck with me.”

He looks over at Uhura when he finishes speaking, and she’s biting her lip. Finally, she says, “So Pike’s basically an older, wiser version of you, huh?”

Jim laughs. “Yeah, but I’m hotter.”

Uhura rolls her eyes, biting back a laugh and pretending she isn’t. Then she asks, “Do I want to know _where_ you’re going to get it?”

“Oh, here, I’ll show you—“ Jim’s hands go to the waistband of his pants, and Uhura finally bursts out laughing.

“Oh my god, no—“

Jim settles back into his seat, grinning, flushed with the victory of that meteor shower laugh. He tells her, “I haven’t decided. Maybe my wrist—add to the one I have, maybe, or just on the other one.”

“Wait. You’re telling me we’re _on the way_ to get you _permanently inked_ and you haven’t even decided where you want it?” She asks disbelievingly.

“I was going to ask the artist where she thinks it’d work best,” Jim says, defensive. “Because I was thinking maybe behind my ear, but I’m not sure it’d fit.”

Uhura hums thoughtfully, pulling into the shop’s parking lot. “Right or left?”

“Right,” Jim says, after a moment’s consideration. “That way the words would be going up.”

“As they should be,” Uhura agrees, parking.

Jim shoots her a look while he unclicks his seatbelt, says, “You don’t actually have to wait with me, you know. I mean, thanks for the ride, but—“

“Kirk, come on.” Uhura rolls her eyes. “You _just_ barely decided where to get it, you clearly need a responsible adult present.”

“Now you just sound like Bones,” Jim mutters, pushing his way out of the car.

…

Maybe one of the biggest lessons Jim has learned in his first year of college is that there may be no way eight students can fit comfortably into one dorm room, but they’ll be damned if they don’t try to anyway.

It’s almost impressive.

He’s crammed onto his bed trying to figure out a tricky nanotech concept with Gaila, Bones behind him and half under him studying with his book propped against Jim’s side. Chekov and Scotty are spread out on the minimal floor space masterminding something Jim probably doesn’t want to know about. Sulu is on Gaila’s bed with Uhura getting her help with his French homework, Spock beside them frowning over a philosophy essay.

Every once in awhile Chekov and Uhura trade quips in Russian. Jim hasn’t decided yet if he wants to tell them that he’s practically fluent (fifteen was a boring year for him).

No one has moved in about forty-five minutes when Bones flicks the side of Jim’s head and says, “Time for that bandage to come off, kid.”

“Five more minutes, Mom,” Jim says distractedly, hunched over Gaila’s textbook with her and not interested in moving until they figure this out.

But then Gaila’s head shoots up and she exclaims, “No, I want to see!”

Uhura’s shooting interested glances up from Sulu’s notebook as well, and Bones is already up digging for some antibacterial soap, so Jim figures a study break couldn’t hurt.

Bones follows him to the bathroom, washing his hands and going to work without prompting, pulling off the bandage and grabbing the soap. Jim watches in the mirror, grin tugging at his lips, as Bones soaps and rinses the tattoo with clinical efficiency. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Bones, halfway through patting his skin dry with a tissue, pauses like he’s just realized what he’s doing. Then he rolls his eyes. “Shut your damn mouth.”

“I’m telling Joanna you said that,” Jim singsongs, full out grinning now.

“Please, like I’m ever letting you sit in on a call with her again, after what you did last time,” Bones snorts, shaking his head.

“Last time?” Jim frowns, thinking back. “I was telling her about Mars.”

“Exactly!” Bones say hotly. “You keep that up and she’s gonna be wantin’ to do somethin’ stupid like go to space when she grows up.”

“ _I_ want to go to space when I grow up,” Jim says, still frowning. Then he flushes. “I mean—you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, and you’re an idiot,” Bones says, matter-of-fact.

Jim pulls away from him, eyebrows all scrunched up. “What are you—I know it freaks you out, but—“

“Hey, wait a minute,” Bones says, a little gentler. “I don’t mean it like that.”

“Then what do you mean?” Jim asks, folding his arms across his chest and then dropping them when it looks too much like he’s hugging himself.

Bones looks uncomfortable, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck and not meeting Jim’s eyes. “Look, I just don’t much like the idea of either of you doing somethin’ so dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, I got your back, if you want it I want it, but I’d rather not have to worry about both of you up there.”

“Oh,” Jim says dumbly. Bones rolls his eyes again, and Jim is lighting up inside, like maybe that worry is a suture on the black hole in his chest. He grins. “I knew you loved me.”

Bones looks at him like he’s an idiot. “You wanna see your damn tattoo or not?”

“Yeah, grab me that mirror.”

Bones holds it up for him obligingly. Jim’s hand comes up, involuntary, to hover over the ink. He stares. The words are spelled out in capital letters, following the curve of his ear, underscored by the lines of a shooting star. Just enough blue ink bleeds into the black lines to give the whole thing a faint almost-glow.

“Huh,” Bones says, nodding. “Suits you, kid.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Jim breathes, finally tearing his gaze away and turning to Bones with a wide smile. “So, you know, I guess you’re right.”

“Yeah, yeah, it brings out your baby blue eyes,” Bones grumbles. “Can we go back now?”

…

He lags behind after his next class with Pike, kicks his feet up on the now-empty chair next to him and waits for Pike to stop making him wait.

“You know, the polite thing to do would be to come to me,” Pike says, climbing the stairs and halfway glaring.

Jim grins. “You wouldn’t love me if I was polite.”

“That is literally the opposite of true,” Pike says.

“Now, does that mean you _don’t_ love me because I’m not polite, or is that you giving me free rein to _become_ polite because you’ll love me no matter what?” Jim wonders, feigning thoughtfulness, leaning his chair back on two legs.

“Both,” Pike answers promptly, pushing Jim’s chair down on all fours and collapsing in the one to his left. And for a moment Jim can’t breathe, because he was joking and Pike was _not_ , not fully _._ Pike meets his eyes, steady and clear, but still gives him an out, says, “Did you want something from me, or is it just my lovely company you’re after?”

“Just thought you might like to see my new ink,” Jim says, still a little shaky but good at hiding it with a smile, still a comet that has passed too close to the sun.

Pike raises an eyebrow, expectant, and Jim turns in his seat, turns his head. Pike draws in a sharp breath. His fingertips come up to rest, light, on Jim’s jaw, thumb curving over the skin just above the fresh ink. Finally, he murmurs, “You know I came up with this, wasn’t pulling it from some philosophical old quote or anything.”

“Yeah,” Jim says. Then, the same thing he told Uhura, “Guess it stuck with me. You gonna sue?”

Pike laughs, dropping his hand and shaking his head. “Honestly, son, I’m honored.”

Jim grins. “Good, because it’s kinda permanent.”

Pike claps him on the shoulder, says, “Well, you’ve appealed to my ego now, so how about I buy you lunch?”

“Flattery will get you everywhere?” Jim shoots back, leaning forward to gather his stuff.

Pike smiles, moonlike and steady.

“Something like that.”

…

Jim’s friends get him drunk on his twenty-first birthday, because apparently the fact that he spent the last four years working in a bar and taking advantage of his own supply is feeble in the face of such an honorable, long-standing tradition.

Not that Jim is protesting, anyhow.

He ends up getting dragged home between Bones and Uhura, as is his right as the birthday boy, Gaila stumbling along behind them in heels Jim couldn’t work in sober and giggling like it’s the best night of her life.

Jim suspects he’s smiling the same way.

Somehow, at Jim and Gaila’s dorm, they come to the conclusion that Bones and Uhura just can’t be allowed to leave, regardless of the fact that they're the most sober people in the room. The mattresses end up on the floor, a drunken conclusion that four people on two mattresses together will work better than two on one each. Someone with common sense insists Jim and Uhura should be split up, in case Jim brushes against her in his sleep and she breaks his nose.

Jim disagrees, of course, because he is a _gentleman_ and it’s his _birthday_ and if there’s going to be a puppy pile he damn well wants in the middle.

He ends up with Bones’s heavy arm pinning him to the bed and Gaila’s head on his shoulder, sandwiched between the two of them with Uhura on the other side of Gaila.

Ten minutes later, Uhura whispers, “Jim? Are you awake?”

“Mmm,” he hums sleepily, not sure why he is. He’s warm and safe and softly in love, nothing to keep him awake except maybe subconscious anticipation of this conversation, Uhura’s not-quite-even breathing against Gaila’s back.

“Jim, I love your tattoo,” Uhura mumbles, maybe more drunk than Jim thought.

“Mmm,” he says again, articulate agreement or as much as he’s able. He stares at the stars on his ceiling, a little more awake, and tells them like a secret, “I love you.”

“Gaila’s going to be so disappointed you said it to me first,” Uhura murmurs. “She told you months ago.”

Jim thinks back, then smiles. “I didn’t think she meant it.”

“She did,” Uhura tells him, tired. “She does.”

“Think I’m starting to get that,” Jim whispers.

Then Bones mumbles something in his sleep that sounds a lot like _shut up_ and Gaila lets out a soft, breathy snore, and their conversation subsides, nothing left in the green-tinted darkness but the sound of Uhura curling up tighter against Gaila’s back.

She reaches over Gaila and rests her hand on Jim’s chest, the warmth of the sun on his beating heart.

…

Jim falls asleep in jeans and bare feet, his favorite old NASA t-shirt worn and faded and smelling like the bar they’d just gotten back from, not one of them bothering to change. The moon is on his shoulder, nose nudging into his tattoo, and the stars are wrapped around his waist, strong and grounding, and the sun’s got a hand on his chest, his heart in her palm.

He dreams of gravity and galaxies.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter should be out soon, just having a little trouble wrapping this up. Turns out it's kinda difficult to write an ending for a story that has little to no actual plot? Who knew.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So remember when I said this chapter would be up soon like three weeks ago? Sorry about that.  
> On the bright side, it's finally done! Endless thanks to [dearly](http://dearly.tumblr.com/) for the beta, for without her this probably would have taken me another three weeks (and still wouldn't have been quite so refined). Hope you guys enjoy!

Jim buys a motorcycle two weeks before June.

Pike laughs and tells him to be careful, Uhura offers to teach him how to ride, Bones makes him take her up on it and buys them both a helmet. Gaila spends a Saturday afternoon with him painting stars across the handlebars. He takes her for a ride as soon as he gets the hang of it, out in the country at night, and she laughs into the wind that they are shooting stars.

…

Gaila tells him she’s living with Uhura next year just after his last final.

He stares at her blankly, about a fourth of his mind trying to process her words and the other three-fourths still trying to stop thinking in astrophysics equations. Then it sinks in, and his eyes widen. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Gaila parrots, questioning. “Good oh or bad oh?”

“Just… oh,” Jim says, shaking his head at himself. “I hadn’t even thought about next year.”

“Does that mean you were planning on staying with me?” Gaila asks, biting her lip.

Jim rolls his eyes, slinging an arm around her and bumping their hips together until she smiles. “That means I haven’t thought about it. I’ll find a place, though, stop giving me that worried face. Maybe Scotty needs a roommate, or—well, I guess Spock, if Uhura’s sticking with you—“

“Wait, you haven’t talked to Leonard yet?” Gaila interrupts.

“Sure, I talked to him this morning,” Jim says easily. “What exactly does that have to do with my living arrangements?”

“He said he was going to tell you,” Gaila mutters. Then she shrugs, relaxing, and says, “No problem, then. You’re gonna live with him.”

“When was this decided?” Jim asks, bemused. “And why was I not consulted?”

“Because Uhura asked me Wednesday morning when we got coffee with Leonard. You know, the day you wouldn’t get out of bed,” Gaila says pointedly. “Anyway, I told her I didn’t want to ditch you, and Len said he was planning on asking you to stay the summer so he might as well keep you.”

“He was?” Jim asks, surprised.

“Well, yeah,” Gaila says, as if it’s obvious. “He’s an adult, got his own apartment, not like he’s going home to his parents for the summer, and we know when the dorms close you…“

And Gaila trails off, swallows the words, but Jim hears them anyway. _You’ve got nowhere else to go_. He could respond.

“I love how you say he’s an adult like we’re not,” he says instead.

“Says the kid in a spaceship t-shirt,” Gaila retorts.

And, well, some things Jim can’t argue with.

…

“So am I sleeping on your couch next year or what?”

Bones, walking through the doorway of Jim and Gaila’s room with his arms full of take-out for everyone, doesn’t even look up.

“Second bedroom’s yours if you don’t mind sleeping in a desk chair,” he says dryly, shutting the door behind him. “Or on top of the desk, the floor if you bring your own sleeping bag. Really, I’m flexible.”

Jim grins, lounging on his bed. “In that case, which side of the bed do you prefer?”

“And now we’re serious,” Bones tells him, rolling his eyes and dumping the bag on Gaila’s desk. He turns to Jim, says, “I’m going to clear the second room, it’s yours. For however long you want it.”

“You sure?” Jim asks.

“Wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t,” Bones says.

“Technically Gaila offered,” Jim counters.

“Yeah, well, Gaila has a big mouth,” Bones says loudly. Gaila doesn’t bother to protest, just shrugs and nods. Then pointedly, patiently, and exasperatedly all at once—a feat Jim can’t help but be impressed by—he asks, “And where did Gaila get the idea?”

Jim nods. “Point taken.”

“Good. Don’t ask me again,” Bones tells him, a weird brand of reassurance but reassurance nonetheless. Considering, he adds, “’Sides, I’m used to having a toddler running around. Can’t be much different.”

“Hilarious,” Jim deadpans. The sarcasm loses its effect when Uhura laughs, Gaila and Chekov giggling but at least having the decency to try to stifle it.

When Bones is sitting beside Jim with a plate of food, he says, “Speaking of, though, Jocelyn’s agreed to let Joanna come out for part of the summer, probably end of June, early July. Just a heads up.”

“Really?” Jim perks up, taking the plate Bones offers him. “How’d that happen, her new boyfriend want to take a vacation?”

Bones laughs, shaking his head. “No, she’s just… lightening up. Was hell-bent on restricting my access as much as possible when everything was still fresh, but it’s been over a year now, and she’s seein’ sense. She doesn’t want Joanna growin’ up without a father anymore than I do.”

“So she’s _not_ a fire-breathing dragon with a black soul and a heart of stone?” Jim asks, feigning shock.

“Don’t be an infant. I loved her once, still do in a way, wouldn’t have done if she was some kinda monster,” Bones says.

“Could’ve fooled me, the way you talked about her sometimes,” Jim says. Then he shrugs, reconsiders. “Still, that is true. You clearly have superior taste, judging by the people you’ve surrounded yourself with now.”

Bones frowns, surveying the crowded room with a critical eye. Gaila, still one exam left, is flat on her back on the floor with a book open on her face, an untouched plate of food beside her. Uhura, finally done as of this morning, is laying on her stomach with her face in Gaila’s pillow kicking Spock every time he tries to give her lunch. Scotty, Chekov and Sulu are arguing at Jim’s desk over a set of blueprints for what looks very much like a shrink ray. Bones’s eyes meet his again, and Jim beams.

Bones sighs. “You may have a point.”

The smile falls off Jim’s face. “I wasn’t being sarcastic!”

…

He swings by Pike’s office when he has a second to spare between packing, and Pike invites him in with something like relief. Jim drops into his usual chair and grins widely.

“So, how did I do?”

Pike raises an eyebrow, back to impassively unimpressed. “You’ll have to be a little more specific.”

“My final,” Jim says, willing to play along. “I blew it out of the water, right? Third in the class?”

Pike finally cracks half a smile. “Third?”

“I’m not even trying to beat Scotty and Chekov,” Jim says dismissively. “I’m a realist.”

“Well, as it happens,” Pike relents, leaning forward in his seat and shuffling a few papers. “Theirs haven’t been graded yet, because Scotty and Chekov have enough manners to not come knocking on my door four days after they took it.”

“Please, don’t act like you weren’t happy to see me,” Jim says, grinning.

“You’re out of my class now, kiddo, I was just surprised you still had some use for me,” Pike says.

Jim looks away. “You know I do.”

“Yeah, _I_ know,” Pike admits, gentle. “Just wasn’t sure _you_ did.”

Jim smiles again, a little softer, a little more real. Then he clears his throat. “You said that _their_ tests haven’t been graded. Does that mean mine has?”

Pike grins like he’s proud, maybe because Jim caught that, maybe because he says, “Full marks, Jim. You killed it.”

Jim drops his head back, laughing and relieved. And it’s senseless, of course, because he’s been killing it all year, but somehow this was the final test, making it to this moment, and he passed.

Finally, he says, “You know, some people might call that favoritism, grading mine first.”

“I like to think of it as self-preservation,” Pike says, and Jim has to give him that one. “That means you’re a pain in my ass, in case you can’t read between the lines.”

“Hey, you knew that going in,” Jim says. “Bet you’re just surprised I’m a pain in the ass who aced your exams all year.”

“Surprised?” Pike snorts. “I was counting on it. Why else do you think I brought you here?”

Jim stays silent. He knows why Pike brought him here, and it had nothing to do with Jim.

Pike sighs. “I always believed in you, kid.”

“Even when I was drooling on a barroom floor?” Jim jokes weakly.

“Especially then,” Pike shoots back. Then he levels Jim with a serious gaze and says, “If anyone deserves a second chance, it’s you.”

And then Jim can’t stay silent. He scoffs, looking away, says quietly, “You mean if anyone deserves a second chance is George Kirk’s son.”

It’s the reason Jim’s here, after all, in more ways then one. George Kirk, promising astrophysicist, dies in a freak lab accident at the university. Winona Kirk, reluctant mother, goes off the rails. Twenty years later and Jim Kirk, genius delinquent, is recruited with a full ride on nothing but his father’s name.

“Jim, you said it yourself. You’ve aced every test we put in front of you. That’s not enough to convince you that you’re here on your own merits?” Pike asks, that same sad look in his eyes that Jim remembers from his first time in this office.

Jim opens his mouth to argue, but Pike stops him with a sharp headshake. “No, seriously. Maybe I was interested in you because I recognized you, but you were wasting your life—and, more to the point, your mind and your considerable potential. _That’s_ why I brought you here. You think I would’ve went so far as to make that offer if _George Kirk’s son_ was some kid of average intellect with nothing special about him?”

“I had napkins hanging out of my nose for most of our first conversation,” Jim points out, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“What, you think I didn’t look up your IQ scores before I made that offer?” Pike laughs. “You _know_ I looked up your criminal record—hell, if you’ll remember, I called you a genius the first time we _met_. But you think I just focused on your frankly impressive list of misdemeanors and thought, ‘yeah, this kid’s last name is gonna make him a real success’?”

Jim stares, shocked into silence. At length, he manages, “That was kind of an irresponsible gamble, then. IQ doesn’t always mean much.”

And just like that, what tension was in Pike’s shoulders seeps right out. He smiles, shaking his head. “Yeah, well, maybe I saw something special in you anyway. Napkins and all.”

“I’m glad you did,” Jim tells him quietly, honestly. He doesn’t say that no one else ever really had before. Somehow, he gets the feeling Pike already knows.

And there’s any number of things Pike can say to that, but very few Jim will actually be comfortable hearing. So Pike, because by this point he knows Jim better than he should, says instead, “So are you sticking around for the summer?”

“Yeah, Bones is letting me crash,” Jim says, smiling at the thought. It’s a small room in the apartment of an overworked med student, sure, but he’ll take that over an empty house in Iowa any day.

“Good,” Pike says. “I might be out of town for a week or so in July, but other than that you know where to find me if you need anything.”

“And if I want anything?” Jim asks.

“That too.” Pike grins. “You’ve got my number, son.”

“In so many ways.”

…

“This is so weird,” Gaila says, sitting on her bed and looking around their nearly empty room.

“That we’re leaving or that we can actually see the floor?” Jim asks, equally disconcerted. His bed is stripped, holding only two duffle bags and a backpack—two more bags than he’d started with, an odd source of pride—and he’s standing on his desk trying to peel the last star off their ceiling.

“Both,” Gaila says. “I’m gonna miss your snoring.”

“I don’t snore!” Jim protests, affronted. Then he succeeds in prying the last star off the ceiling and lets out a triumphant noise.

“You so do.” She holds out a hand for him when he drops to the floor, making grabby hands until he makes his way over to the bed.

“You’re so not gonna miss it,” he says, standing in front of her and lacing their fingers together.

“Maybe not,” Gaila allows. “Gonna miss you, though.”

Jim shakes his head, pulling her hands to his face and pressing a playful kiss to her fingers. “Nah, not for at least six months.”

Gaila cocks her head. “Why six months?”

“Because I’ll be around so much you won’t have time to miss me, and I figure Uhura will put up with that for about six months before she cracks and murders me,” Jim says, grinning.

Gaila throws her head back and laughs, pulling her hands away to slap at his stomach. Then she wraps her arms around his waist and rests her chin on his sternum, gazing up at him. “I’m gonna hold you to that. I’ll even try to keep Uhura reined in.”

“Will you help with Bones, too? Because after six months of these new living arrangements I’m pretty sure they’re going to be fighting over who gets to off me,” Jim says, pushing her hair out of her face.

“Promise I won’t let them.” Gaila tips forward to rest her forehead on his chest and hugs him tighter. “You’re too pretty to die, baby.”

He laughs, folding over to press his face into her hair. “Hey, Gaila?”

“Mmm?”

“I think I love you.”

Gaila freezes for a split second. Then she tumbles backwards out of his arms, gives him the widest grin he’s ever seen, and says, “That is so weird.”

Jim tackles her onto the bed and tickles her until she takes it back, until she says it back, until she’s laughing and shining and saying it over and over.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

...

Uhura makes empanadas her last night in town.

She takes over Bones’s kitchen, throws open all the windows to let in the summer breeze, and sets Jim to work chopping onions and peppers. Bones is in the living room, having attempted to offer his help when he got home from work and been summarily sent away on the grounds that he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. Gaila is both keeping him company and being kept away from sharp objects.

Uhura is rolling out the dough, humming lightly, when Jim tosses his vegetables into a frying pan and opens his mouth.

And before he can get a word out, Uhura shakes her head. “No.”

Jim gives her his best hangdog expression. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I don’t need to know the exact words to know that you were going to ruin it,” Uhura says.

Jim looks up from his pan, intrigued. “Ruin what?”

“Everything. It’s a beautiful afternoon, this whole place smells like great food, and you’ve been following orders like a good little boy for the past half hour. I’m leaving tomorrow, and it’s probably the nostalgia speaking, but I’m actually feeling something approaching fondness for you. Don’t ruin it by speaking,” Uhura tells him.

And maybe Jim should be insulted, but mostly he _gets_ it. There’s a warm glow in his chest—maybe because of the warm summer air, maybe because of the hot stove, maybe because of Uhura’s presence, his own personal sun—and he gets it.

He lets the silence stand.

Uhura allows herself a small smile. “Start dicing the chicken, these are almost ready to be filled.”

Forty-five minutes later, Gaila has managed to drag Bones to the small kitchen table. Uhura sets down a large plate of empanadas a few minutes after that, and Jim follows with sour cream and a pitcher of sweet tea that won’t exactly match their meal but Bones will want anyway.

He’s been teaching Jim to make it right for months now.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” Gaila asks, watching Bones expectantly, shoving nearly half an empanada in her mouth. Bones nods approvingly.

“Think you finally got it, kid,” He tells Jim, thumbing away the stickiness at the corner of his lips and setting down his glass. Then he kicks at Jim’s chair and says, “Now stop hogging the sour cream, come on.”

Gaila laughs, hand hovering over her mouth as if to keep in the food she’s still half-moaning over. Bones switches his attentions to complimenting the chef, making Uhura sit up just the slightest bit straighter as she cuts into her food and subtly preen. And Jim…

When Jim rode his bike for the first time, really rode it, took her out of the city and opened her up until he was flying, until he was a blur on the sunlit landscape and the painted on stars must have been streaks of white shooting across the black, he settled down. Stilled, for maybe the first time in his life, like something slotting into place, his heart whole in his chest.

Here is that feeling.

Here, at this table, good food thus far forgotten on his plate and summer in the air, the girl who burns like the sun to his right and the man with the starry eyes to his left and the girl who hung the moon across the table, he is flying and grounded all at once.

He smiles for twenty minutes straight.

The girls leave after dinner, both of them preparing for an early flight. Gaila hugs him long and kisses him quick, extracting yet another promise that he’ll call before moving on to Bones, and Uhura rises up on her toes to wrap one arm around his neck and press a kiss to the side of his face, one hand skimming through the short hair at his nape and brushing against the tattoo behind his ear. The smile she gives him when she pulls away feels like a reward.

Here is that feeling.

“Hey, Bones?” The door shuts behind them. Bones makes an inquiring noise. “You wanna go for a ride?”

Bones makes another noise, this time disbelieving. “You’re kidding, right?”

Jim grins. “Aw, come on. You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust your ridiculous, impractical death machine,” Bones corrects.

“Bones,” Jim says, clapping his hands onto his shoulders and meeting his eyes. “It’s a ridiculous, impractical _fun_ machine. It’s a fun machine until someone actually dies.”

“You wanna know how many people have _actually died_ on a motorcycle?” Bones asks, raising his eyebrows, no doubt ready to launch into statistics.

Jim shakes his head quickly. “On _my_ bike, Bones, my bike. No one has died on my bike.”

“And no one’s going to tonight,” Bones says firmly. “Get it outta your head, Jim.”

“I could do that,” Jim agrees. “Or you could say yes.”

“Why would I ever?”

“Because I’m asking you to.”

And Bones sighs, shoulders slumping, hand coming up to rub at his face. Then he straightens up, mouth flattening out into a grim line, and points at him sternly. “We’re both wearing a helmet, and you don’t once go over fifty.”

Jim whoops, dragging Bones into a hug and dashing off to grab his keys before he changes his mind.

And Bones keeps up a death grip on Jim’s jacket and a litany of curses and prayers all the way out of town, but he doesn’t change his mind.

And when Jim pushes her over fifty the second they hit the highway, Bones just swears into the wind, exasperated and exulted and free. Jim laughs, loud and long and lost in the twilight air, a comet soaring through the stars.

…

Jim goes to sleep in his new bed in his new room, wind-tousled purple-blue hair spread over his pillow, face pressed into the planets on his pillowcase and hand clutched in the slip, on the edge of dreaming when he registers the back of his eyelids glowing green. He rolls his head blearily, staring up at the ceiling and realizing there are plastic stars lighting up the room, that he never did get around to buying a new pack, and feels an elated sort of peace.

He dreams of space and stardust.


End file.
